When I start the car the fan/ac controls don't respond independently for about 10/15 sec, they then come to life with there previous settings. Is this normal and if so why ?    

I've seen the same in my Octavia climate control. It responds instantly when I actually make an adjustment, but waits for a short while otherwise. It's probably doing it most of the time, but I only notice when there's demisting to be done before I can drive off. My guess is that the noise from the fan is less intrusive if the climate control runs the fan up gradually after the car has started moving so the extra noise gets lost in the engine/tyre noise already there.

Thanks, just wanted to know if this was common or a possible fault.I can't see why they would build this wait into the start up procedure unless the on-board computer is slow or somebody thinks its cool to simulate a computer booting up ? , Don't mind the 'dial dance' and various messages popping up about depress clutch, Bluetooth ect but this seems a bit OTT if not needed.